


Moving in the Dark

by be_a_rebel



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-20
Updated: 2010-02-20
Packaged: 2017-10-07 10:07:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/64088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/be_a_rebel/pseuds/be_a_rebel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The darkness isn't quite what he expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moving in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> Post-Coe fic.

According to pretty much everyone they've brought back with the Resurrection Glove, there is nothing there. Dark. Something moving in the dark (terrified, white, gaunt Owen).

 

When Jack is quite honestly, slobbering over him that's all he can think of. He's said his goodbye, his farewell and now he's preparing for what's next, what comes now.

 

According to all expectations, there should be nothing.

 

And for a while, that's all there is.

 

* * *

 

 

The thing is, he believes in God. He's not religious, he hasn't gone to church since he was seven years old and rebelled, tearing away as his father yelled at him, as Rhiannon cried, round cheeked and big eyed, curled up behind the fridge in her blue frock, the one that's too big for her, another hand me down from Aunt Doris who always smells of whiskey and sugar, giant palms covered in flour.

 

But he believes, despite Lisa, despite Tosh and Owen, despite Gwen crying when everyone was looking and later when no one was.

 

He looks at Jack out of the corner of his life and he believes because he's never believed in a new lease on life but when he painted his walls periwinkle blue and found that he had trouble remembering the shape of the tiny flower on Lisa's hip, he knew he was healing. So he believes because the impossible is possible and he's loyal and obsessive and he thought he'd never want another but he does.

 

He never thought he'd love another but he does.

 

He believes in God because Jack stopped Lisa before she could destroy the world. He believes in God because Jack comes back to life every time. He believes in God because Tosh smiles after every call to her mother.

 

He believes in God because despite all odds, Gwen is going to have a child.

 

He believes the darkness will end.

 

He's right.

 

* * *

 

When he wakes up he isn't alone. He isn't naked either.

 

Owen's thumb is pulling his left eyelid down and Tosh is peering at him anxiously.

There's someone else there too. And there's the real miracle, the real affirmation of God.

 

It's Lisa.

 

* * *

 

He never asked Lisa out. He was too young, too green, as they'd say, clumsy and terrified.

 

She never was.

 

Just marched up to him and asked him out for coffee. He remembers bumbling his way to a yes.

 

With Jack he needs to, has to, change the variables. He propositions Jack and there are no expectations, no fantasies.

 

If he changes the variables it won't end the same.

 

Turns out he's right. He won't lose Jack.

 

Jack will lose him.

 

He's selfish enough to believe that's fair.

 

Changing the variables is supposed to change the answer.

 

He still falls in love with Jack.

 

* * *

 

Tosh insists on knowing how he died. He tells them, not looking at their faces.

 

"So you weren't alone, then. You were with someone you loved." Tosh's eyes are shining, odd how she turned out the most romantic of them all. Owen ate away Gwen's naivete and Jack shot his.

 

He looks at her but he feels Lisa.

 

* * *

 

He watched the video feed of Tosh's last minutes fifteen times before Jack found it and deleted it.

 

He didn't even watch it once.

 

He hated him a little for that.

 

* * *

 

It's oddly amusing to think that Torchwood, with all its madness never prepared him for the truly disturbing chance of having to explain to his dead girlfriend about his current lover. Ex-lover.

 

It's all rather confusing.

 

Was it cheating if she was dead? Logic dictates that it wasn't but he was looking at Jack before Jack put a bullet in her. (Look but never touch.)

 

He'd admitted months ago that he'd been looking at the world through a Jack-hued scope long before she died.

 

Some things are just inevitable. Jack is one of them.

 

He tells her, not in so many words, never needed to with her, but enough so that she leans away, no longer knees and elbows brushing. Owen and Tosh have disappeared, Tosh somewhat shamefaced.

 

He wants to tell her its okay, he and Lisa don't have secrets.

 

He thinks of Jack smiling before he left for the night and thinks that was never true.

 

* * *

 

A week after they'd put Tosh away (he refuses to think of it any other terms) he'd woken up on the hub couch, covered in Jack's coat.

 

There was a post it note on the cuff, along with a coffee stain.

 

"You need to get out more."

 

Jack doesn't think he needs taking care of.

 

He knows that is patently untrue.

 

* * *

 

Lisa disappears. He tries not to panic but Tosh sees it. Owen just looks disgusted.

 

"Can't you make up your fucking mind?"

 

The thing is, he already has. His decision is surviving the end of the world.


End file.
